Hidden Away
by Amorisa
Summary: Echoes of the past tell a story of a lost and almost forgotten love, and the difference between what was and what is. A series of connected one-shots.
1. Hidden Away

**Title:** "Hidden Away"  
**Author:** Rissy James  
**Characters:** Glitch and DG  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Summary:** One-shot. Post-series. _Echoes of the past speak of a lost and (almost) forgotten love; the difference between what was and what is.  
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**Author's Note:** Written for Challenge 2A ("Epistolary Fic") at tm_challenge over on Livejournal.

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**Hidden Away**

When Glitch was informed one night over dinner that his private study had been unearthed during the chaos and bustle of restoring the Central palace, he'd been hard pressed to contain his squeal of delight. When DG heard of Glitch's good news, she convinced him to allow her to accompany him.

Two days of dust and grime, of cobwebs and woggle beetle exoskeletons followed. It seemed Ambrose had been in the midst of packing when he'd picked up and left everything behind in a hurry. When he returned almost ten annuals later, his head was much lighter but his heart was worn and happy.

Cleaning it themselves was a mildly successful endeavour. A week in, DG set to putting books back on the freshly lemon-waxed shelves. Pulling a jumble of hard-cover journals and technical manuals out of a box, she lost her grip on one. It fell to the floor with a thud. Cursing low under her breath – at which Glitch's _tsk, tsk_ sounded from the opposite side of the room – she bent over and picked up the book.

From its flapping pages fell a piece of paper.

"Ooh, look," she said with great interest. Glitch looked up from the volume that had distracted him, a personal account of building what looked to be a very complex machine, if the diagrams were to be believed. Glitch had shown it to her earlier with a grin; she'd cocked her head to the side, frowning. Perhaps looking at the picture from a different angle would change the amount of sense it made.

"What is it?" Glitch asked now.

DG held up the paper as she shelved the book she'd dropped. "A hidden letter."

"Brilliant, lets see!" Glitch got up from the desk and crossed the room. DG handed him the paper, and watched as he unfolded it. His eyes scanned down quickly, but even faster was the deep blush that rose to his cheeks. Within seconds, he'd finished reading and had at the same time turned an amazing shade of crimson.

"Oh my," Glitch said in disbelief as he folded the letter. "_Ohh my._"

DG laughed; she couldn't help it. "Love letter, huh? It can't be that bad," she said. "May I?"

"At your own risk."

Rolling her eyes, DG took the letter and unfolded it. The paper had once been gold; in the intervening annuals, the sheen had worn off and the colour had faded to pale yellow. It had been written with a very light and fine, but steady, hand; the signature at the bottom belonged to Ambrose. An unsent love letter.

_My dearest, sweetest Treasure,_

_The towers of the city are aglow in moonlight, but my heart remains with you, resting in Finaquan fields. My eyes linger to the south. My ears stay keened for the merest mention of your name. _

_A thousand escape plans have burst fully formed into my head, though none will execute as perfectly in reality as in fantasy, from trial and error I know this well. Patience is key to peace; this I seek desperately._

_My duties in Central City keep the burden of being away from you at bay during daylight hours, where out of sight the twin suns cannot stand as celestial reminders of each moment passing without my having reached for you, looked upon you, breathed beside you._

DG tore her eyes away from the page. "Eloquent, weren't you?"

Glitch shook his head. "Him," he said quietly, plucking the letter from her fingers. "Not me. I could never – no, not me."

DG sighed, and looped her arm through his, noticing that he'd pocketed the letter with the finesse of a magician. "So, who was it for?" She looked up at her friend to see the blush in his cheeks rage anew. She perked her eyebrow curiously. "Glitch... who was it for?"


	2. Seek And Ye Shall

**Title:** "Seek And Ye Shall..."  
**Author:** Rissy James  
**Characters:** DG  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** One-shot. Post-series.

**Author's Note:** Written for Challenge 9A ("Scavenger Hunt") at tm_challenge over on Livejournal.

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**Seek And Ye Shall...**

The days in Finaqua were eternal ones. The whir of grasshoppers in the fields could extend for hours, one long and endless hum; the faint redolence of the marshes past the maze could linger in the meadows on the stillest afternoon while DG lay, slowly turning herself into a suns-baked husk.

She stayed here because she could stretch out in the high, dry grasses and hide. While she hid, she drew. On her stomach with the suns beating down on her back, she chronicled the days as she saw them, watching through clear-sky eyes; Cain's pattern of brood and prowl, her sister's slow opening, her parents' delicate moth-wing romance, and Glitch's small rediscoveries of himself. It was the latter that intrigued her most, filled her pages.

She tried to capture it with stark black pencil, that glow he would carry in his eyes when he managed to hold onto a memory long enough to seek her out, that beautiful clarity in his features instead of bemused complacency.

It was never anything particularly illuminating; the damage was unrepairable and permanent, no way getting around it, so why worry? Don't look so sad, DG, I'm not...

_Really._

One afternoon, months after this first, heartbreaking news, DG pulled herself up from the ground, leaving her impression in the meadow grass. It was a slow and aimless walk back to the palace, the kind that Glitch specialized in. She practised alone so that with him, she never interrupted, never grew bored or impatient.

She took a path that wound its lazy way around the lake, sweeping toward the gazebo as most paths around the lake and woods seemed to do. She walked carefully, watching the ground for the smooth, round stones she and her sister had once upon a time coveted. She might have missed the most perfect stone anyway, distracted and off in thought as she was... until there! Gleaming in the dirt, not a stone, but a...

"Hmm," DG said, bending to pick up the glass disc. It caught the waning afternoon light, tossing prismatic beams into her eyes.

She knew it took magic to sear memories into the glass discs, the kind of alchemic mastery of microcosms that could be achieved through study and sacrifice. Holding it up to the light revealed no secrets. She wondered if her natural magic would allow her to read it, this bit of science and magic fired into one.

She closed her eyes and levelled her breathing. It was almost instantaneous, a loud rush in her ears and her mind was overtaken by the memory of another. She was thrown into a sepia-toned world where the focus was softer, the light dimmer, the sounds quieted.

"_You shouldn't draw so much attention to yourself,"_ a dark and serious boy said. He was laying on his back on the gazebo floor, his hands behind his head and his gangly legs stretched out. On the swing sat a girl, dark hair braided down her back. Neither could have been more than twelve. _"It reflects badly on you, you know."_

The girl laughed, unconcerned. _"What care you for how I seem to others?"_

The memory released her, and DG was left gasping for air. She turned and stared hard at the gazebo, as unassuming as it ever was, its view unchanged since the restoration of Finaqua. The swing had been rehung since then, and she was reminded of the girl perched on it, and the boy completely trusting as she swung back and forth over his head. Her long skirt had brushed over his chest.

DG shook her head, pocketed the disc, and carried her sketchbook back to the palace.

Three days later, she found the second disc completely by accident; her heart leapt to see it half-buried in the silted lake bottom, where the shore was overgrown with bright purple marsh lilies.

"_I know this colour," _the boy said, wading in with pants rolled to the knee. The aged light of the memory made him pale. He plucked the marsh lily and held it up to the girl.

After this, DG began to keep an eye out for the vibrant catches of light that signalled another lost piece of the tale. She would find them in the most beautiful, if not most remote, corners of the estate; places often haunted with memories of herself and Az as girls. She would spend whole days with her eyes trained to the ground; when she caught hell later on from her mother or Cain, her mind would be with the boy and girl. Always her mind went back to the gazebo, the lazy swing and the caress of her skirt.

The discs collected as weeks passed. Whether found in wood (_"These trees are as ancient as the land we stand on."_), or field (_"Five more minutes, please. Don't make me go back yet."_), or maze (_"Don't be silly, the shrubbery is not laughing at you."_) the memories told a story of peace, adoration, and friendship. Something familiar called to DG, something that always brought her back to the gazebo.

She wandered there on days when all the searching through meadow and maze turned up nothing. The dull echo of her feet on the platform comforted her; the creak of the swing as it carried her weight lulled her. One afternoon, as the suns were sinking ever closer to the mountains, streaking the sky with blazes of colour, she gave herself a gentle push. She closed her eyes and leaned back, imagining a dark haired and quiet companion lounging beneath her...

Her eyes popped open as she stopped herself. She slid off the swing, to her knees on the platform. Without hesitation, she stretched out. The wood was warm against her back as she stared up first into the beams above, and then closer, at the smooth, white bottom of the swing. She ran her finger over the letters carved into the wood.

_A + L_


	3. Dainty and Inelegant

**Title:** "Dainty and Inelegant"  
**Author:** Rissy James  
**Characters:** Glitch and DG  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** One-shot. Post-series.

**Author's Note:** Written for Challenge 10A ("It's Like Technicolor!") at tm_challenge over on Livejournal. Inspiration credit to lionille.

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**Dainty and Inelegant**

"That's the colour of Mother's eyes."

DG hunkered down on her heels, the hem of her lacy white dress brushing the dirty stone stairs in front of her. She reached down to finger the stiff, rough stem of the weed growing in the cracks of the palace steps. Above her loomed the great palace of Finaqua, a lonely, forgotten relic of a Golden Age.

Closer to the ground, she saw that lavender was everywhere she looked. The long, dry marsh grass that spread out as far as she could see was veiled with the pale purple buds. How hadn't she noticed these wildflowers approaching from the maze? Had she been too focused on the sight of the palace to see that the grassland around her rioted with the colour of love and safety?

With a twist of her fingers, she broke the stalk in her hand. She stood, and held her discovery up to the warmth of the double suns. Fragile veins of darker purple ran through the petals of the lavender blossoms that erupted at random from the stem. She couldn't remember a time when she'd held something so delicate and beautiful in her hands.

_Mother._

She climbed the old, uneven steps to reach the grand terrace. "Isn't it, though?" She turned to Glitch, hoping for an affirmation.

Her friend was distracted by something flying out over the lake, a misplaced look of concentration hard on his features. DG cleared her throat, and Glitch's attention snapped to the princess holding a weed up to the sunslight. Spell broken. He wrinkled his nose at her as he mounted the steps, grit crunching underneath his hard-soled shoes.

"Isn't it what? A weed?" He took the slender stem from her, and plucked a lush lavender petal from one of the three flowers, turning it over in his fingers. After a moment, he opened his mouth and placed the petal on his tongue. As DG watched, he chewed it slowly, considered for a moment, and then swallowed. "_Nuttallanthus canadensis._"

DG frowned; she'd grown used to his odder tendencies, but sometimes... "More commonly referred to as...?" She bent down. The stone steps of the palace had long since given up to neglect, the passage of time and the ravage of nature. Shoots of lavender sprang from every crack and crevice, some stalks reaching a foot high. It was incredible, magical, how quickly life had come back to this special place.

Glitch didn't answer. He did as DG had done, raising the broken-off stem to the suns. A faint smile graced his lips, and his face softened. He plucked another petal and offered it up to the wind. She watched it fly toward the lake until the glare of the suns made her blink, and it was gone.

She looked up at Glitch. He broke off a whole blossom with a clear, quiet _snap_. He studied the pale flower so intently, lost somewhere that DG couldn't follow him. She'd almost decided that he'd forgotten she was there when he finally spoke.

"Do you know what this colour reminds me of?"


End file.
